reading fingers; should children be told to point to words as they read?

SSP Green Level SSP Purple to Yellow Levels SSP Blue Level to independent reading

Green Level Purple Level Yellow Level Blue Level

What is the beginning reading brain ‘asking’ the eyes to do to know how what the word is? The brain LOVES it when it can go from left to right and blend the sounds into words, to create the whole word. However it can also memorise high frequency words, to intersperse between words it can actually ‘read’. The brain doesn’t want to stop and slow down, and have to work hard. This is why we scaffold teaching of the code, and introduce high frequency ‘helpful words’ at a pace the child can cope with comfortably. It means the children can read a sentence without needing to stop and start to consciously decode.

What is the developing reading brain ‘asking’ the eyes to do while decoding for fluency and comprehension? Now the eyes are starting to scan ahead… Pointing to individual words will go against what the reading brain wants…

What is the reading brain ‘asking’ the eyes to do at this level (SSP Blue) in order to understand (visualise and comprehend) the text?

The brain does NOT want the child to point to individual

words at this stage. It will stop the brain from

comprehending the text, and stop the child’s natural

‘flow’.